Like Two Ships Passing
by Rosemary
Summary: Draco and Hermione. Brief encounters in an unusually long and unfrequented passageway.
1. WHAT is your problem?

It was one of the school's more narrow hallways and Hermione Granger was but ten feet away from having to pass Draco Malfoy, who already appeared to be bearing his fangs. Five feet. Two feet. No feet. He decided to block her way with his arm, "Mudblood."  
  
"Malformed."  
  
"Aren't we all comfy cozy like in such a small space together? Kind of makes you want to cry out, doesn't it?"  
  
"You aren't worth the effort it would take to shout. Sling your insults and I'll be on my way."  
  
"There are other ways to hurt you, you filthy Muggle born." Ah, the sneer. So predictable. So no longer scary. Hermione sighed inwardly and smiled up at him, all sweetness.  
  
That, Draco thought, was as unacceptable as it was unnerving.  
  
"Why are you smiling, Granger? I didn't say anything nice. I believe I threatened you."  
  
"Idly, yes. I'm used to it. Seriously, Malfoy, I've got no time for this. I'm expected in class, shortly. Can we please do this some other time?"  
  
"So much for spontaneity."  
  
"This is never spontaneous. I always walk this way on my way to the Library, and you always seem to be here waiting for me."  
  
"I, wait for you? Don't be ridiculous. I simply like this passage, as well. It's long, it's quiet, it's a solitude away from the lesser thans. Not a redhead or freckle in sight. I think you should find someplace else to walk."  
  
"We seem to like it for similar reasons (Ron and family excepted, of course) and I have no desire to change my walk because I have no desire to do anything that would make your life easier. You have it easy enough as it is."  
  
"What is that supposed to mean?"  
  
"Son of Lucius Malfoy. Son of All Things Perfectly Pureblood and Inbred and Unholy. He wants you to have something. You have it. Lesson endeth, any questions?"  
  
"Don't pretend to know me, Granger. Despite what you may think, I work hard and get by on my own merits."  
  
A feeling of mutual awkwardness overcame them and they simultaneously shuffled their feet.  
  
"Let me by," Hermione whined, rolling her eyes and finishing with a glare.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Malfoy, what? WHAT is your problem? You hate me and yet you seem to go out of your way to be in MY way all the time. If you dislike me so much why not avoid me altogether? As for this, we can easily avoid a confrontation by agreeing to pass each other quietly and without notice, like two ships passing in the night, as the expression goes."  
  
"And why would I want to avoid a confrontation with my favorite Mudblood? Irritating you, filling you with fear, these are the things I live for."  
  
"I always new you had a pathetically deviant reason for breathing. God, you are boring. Not scary. Boring. You haven't intimidated me for years and you know this is true. And this," she gestured wildly between them, "is just an 11 year olds' game. You're intelligent, Malfoy. I almost get sad when I think about the conversations we might have had if you'd been brought up better."  
  
"And I wonder what might have been if the blood coursing through your veins wasn't tainted and inferior."  
  
He removed his hand from the wall. "Go on, then."  
  
Frustration about what could have been? A realization that they would probably like each other if circumstances had been different, kinder. Is that what these daily encounters were really about?  
  
"Malfoy, I'm going to ask you something and I want an honest answer, so box up the sarcasm and control your smirk. Why can't we get past this? Why can't we get beyond it. It's ridiculous!"  
  
"Like you said, I am the son of Lucius Malfoy. Pureblood, unholy." He paused.  
  
"You forgot inbred!"  
  
"Are not!"  
  
"Are, too!"  
  
Yep, definitely just like being eleven all over again.  
  
"Shut up, Granger. You asked me for an honest answer and I'm giving it to you. I was born to hate you, not for who you are, but who and where you came from. It's hatred passed down through the years from generation to generation, and there is no end to it. My children will hate yours, assuming your alive to have children after Voldermort is done with you and your miserable kind. These are things we can't change."  
  
And from the expression in his eyes, she had to ask, "But do you want them to change? If there was any way, would you even try?"  
  
"I'm here, aren't I? Every day like clockwork. Not at all spontaneous. Waiting for you."  
  
Hermione felt the urge to cry from a mixture of frustration and relief. If someone like Draco Malfoy could so much as admit to wanting things to be different, maybe there really was hope that circumstances could change. "Same time tomorrow?"  
  
"Like two ships?"  
  
"Two very loud ships. Ships that fire cannons at one another."  
  
He laughed then. It felt good to laugh, even if it was with her. Maybe he would laugh again tomorrow, or maybe he'd finally gather up the courage to sock her in her Muggle born face. Either way, it was something to look forward to. 


	2. May I please see them?

Same narrow corridor. A tunnel with an obscured horizon. A path from here to there with seemingly no end, long but cramped. It was a passageway few students frequented because of its seclusion, as if it were something separated from the rest of the school. It was quiet. All was still but the movement of one's own body step after step. Walking inside its seclusion felt like someone had magicked the world mute. It was heaven if you were someone who loved the quiet, as Hermione did. Still, it was not a place most students would feel safe walking without the comfort of wand. The blackness was not a solid mass, but a mixture of grey, charcoal and pitch. It did not take much for a student to suddenly imagine - for a flicker of a moment - that a shade of black was really a Death Eater finally coming to kill off all the Mudbloods. Especially foolish Mudbloods who like to walk alone in semi-secret places. Blissful quiet aside, Hermione would not want to walk towards the blackness and come face to face with her mortal enemy.  
  
Or would she? Well, not that dangerous perhaps, but an enemy all the same. Though in times when she allowed herself to consider the likely possibility that Draco's forearm bore the Dark Mark, she had to accept the possibility that their enmity was indeed a mortal threat. And it hurt. Not because she liked Draco - she most certainly did not - but because it was practically inconceivable that she, at sixteen, would have to defend her life against one of her own. A student. A peer. A teenager. It was too sad to comprehend.  
  
Despite their enormous differences, Hermione and Draco used the hallway for the same reasons: it gave them space, it gave them time away from it all (whatever "it" was on any given day), and just yesterday they even acknowledged that it allowed them the indulgence of wonderment: What would it be like if we could be friends? What kind of world would have to exist in order for that to happen?  
  
And most surprising, why would either of them even want to know the answers to those questions after all that's happened since that first day at Hogwarts.  
  
And there he was. First the silvery white of his hair shimmered an undeterminable distance ahead. Could she make out his body, his hair might have seemed halo-like. As it was, it appeared a diffused orb and reminded her of Professor Lupin's boggart. She wondered if he could make out any part of her, but realized that even after she could make out his face, he was not seeing her at all. He was too unguarded. Hermione had never seen him looking so young, not even as a first year. She was again overtaken by a feeling of sadness that flooded into her from all sides like an atmospheric assault. She saw classmates in Gryffindor and Ravenclaw comparing their Dark Marks. It would be unfair and unwise to assume they were all Slytherins.  
  
Again the space between them decreased foot by foot until they were standing right in front of each other, their glowers falling into place. Hermione tried as best she could to look like she wasn't about to come apart at the seams."  
  
Draco's eyebrow highlighted his right eye with an arch practiced to perfection. "You look like your stuffing is falling all out, Granger. Perhaps we should take you to Madame Pomfrey for mending?"  
  
Mortified that her best attempts at hiding her emotions was no better than wearing a sign that said, "I'm desperately unhappy and coming undone!" Hermione was slow to retort. "And while we are there, we can ask her to brew you up some eyebrow relaxant. Professor Snape could help. He likes you."  
  
"Snape doesn't like anybody. He is scared of my father."  
  
"He's not scared of anybody. He is probably in love with your father."  
  
"You really are not feeling well, Granger. Resorting to gay humor, it's beneath even you."  
  
"It wasn't an attempt at humor, Malfoy. Just an educated guess. They do like to sit side by side at all the Quidditch matches, after all. Your father is so out of sorts every time you lose, and there is Professor Snape, every time, trying to comfort him with shared smirks and pinched faces."  
  
"Hyperbole. I do not always lose. I just very often lose to that tosser, Potter. The Boy Who Lived Countless Times Just So He Can Be A Better Seeker Than Draco Malfoy. He is a plague of locusts in my fair city.  
  
"I call that comeuppance. Don't you ever tire of whining about not being the 'fairest of them all'? It is so pointless."  
  
"I am going to ignore that, as I have no idea what you are talking about and must therefore assume it has something to do with filthy Muggles. That said, Potter stinks and I am very good looking. Admit it."  
  
"Harry does not stink. You are very good looking. Let me look at your forearms."  
  
"What?!"  
  
"Your forearms. May I please see them?"  
  
"You know, the Dark Mark is not visible except when Lord Voldemort wants it to be. When he calls." He spoke gently.  
  
"Oh."  
  
"I'm not a Death Eater."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"Not yet."  
  
"But someday?"  
  
"But none of your business."  
  
"Tell me never."  
  
"You want me to lie to you?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Draco allowed the corridor to fill again with blissful silence. He begged it to last just a little bit longer, but the girl in front of him refused to get out of his way, out of his head.  
  
"Is your father a Death Eater?"  
  
"Potty swears he is, so he must be.  
  
"I am tired of assuming and I don't go around believing everything I hear, Malfoy, but I'll believe whatever you tell me."  
  
"No you won't. That would be stupid and you aren't stupid. An arrogant, prissy, Gryffindor, Mudblood, bad haired nuisance, but not stupid."  
  
Hermione didn't respond. She just stood staring at him and waited for him to tell her what everyone already knew. He wouldn't lie to her now, she was certain.  
  
"Of course he is."  
  
"You don't have to be like him."  
  
"You are a fool, Granger. I want to be like him. I also do not want to look at your average face anymore today. Same time tomorrow?"  
  
"If you like."  
  
"I do not like. I just..It's. We're not."  
  
"See you tomorrow."  
  
They continued on their separate ways, the darkness surrounding them feeling more full than empty. 


	3. Author's Note

I've read a lot of HP fiction, but I haven't written any besides this.  
  
Editing hints re: grammar and spelling would be appreciated if you have the time. There is some fussing needed for Chapter 1, but I have misplaced the disk where I saved the story . I will edit, soon. Not much will change re: content.  
  
Any comments and criticisms re: content are also greatly appreciated.  
  
As of now, I have no master plan other than to see how these two individuals might be changed (for the better?) in attempting to fraternize despite everything being against them (especially their own characters). It is not intended, at this point, to be particularly romantic, or even necessarily all that resolved.  
  
"A vague disclaimer is nobody's friend". None of these characters are mine. Any dialogue or narrative that seems to copy that found in other writings, fic or otherwise, is unintentional and I apologize in advance. Involuntary plagiarism is the symptom of a highly selective memory. 


End file.
